1) Character building. The player is a character in the game. Nearly all magic in the world actually flows from the player. If you've ever read The Silmarillion (Tolkien) all the magic in Arda basically comes from the spirit of the things created by Eru. So in this sense, the player is a kind of Valar of sorts who can choose to invest their growing power into their creations/minions or into themselves (or a bit of both). That's an over simplification but the point is, part of the game mechanics is having to choose between making your forces more powerful or actual character.

2) The game is very spell-centric. The 3D engine is being designed so you can do Populous style spells to the world. Since it's turn-based (as opposed to real-time) that also means you can have some ridiculously fancy spell effects.

3) Very distinct magic schools.

4) You cannot build heroes. They have to be recruited and there's no Inn. Ones ability to attract heroes is one of the game mechanics and "interesting choices" players have. Those heroes can be wimpy or powerful depending on how the player chooses to use and invest in them.

5) There is massive scaling in this. At the beginning of Fellowship of the Rings (the movie edition) you could see just how powerful Sauron is. In this, if you manage to get a dragon, that dragon can wipe out hundreds of units. And by scale, we mean there's thousands and thousands of troops. One ancient dragon is taking out hundreds of troops.

6) Cities are built and improved and local geography matters. I won't say more on this right now.

7) Multiplayer will involve all players moving at the same time.

8) Battles zoom in so that tactical combat can occur which is also turn based.

I do want to stress that the goal for this isn't to be a MoM clone. It has its own game mechanics, many of which are in common with MoM since, in a sense, both want to have a lot of Civilization-style elements.

One advantage of being designed in 2007 is the hardware requirements are probably going to be higher than our other games. I want to see large battles. I want to see creatures that can wipe out massive numbers of foot soldiers and such. I want to see magic spells that can flood terrain, raise mountains, ruin worlds. I want to see the land sicken and die when evil takes it over.

If we'd done a MOM2, we would have been faithful to the Master of Magic mechanics. But since we're doing a new game, hopefully we'll be able to make a game that combines favorite elements from many games plus adds our own on innovations to the genre. But it'll be some months before we start putting up any previews or anything (or even announce the game officially).

The unannounced fantasy game. Stardock is working on a fantasy strategy game that could be described as a bit of Master of Magic (okay, a lot of Master of Magic), XCom for the tactical battles, and Populous for the scope of your spells.

Wardell: We're working on a turn-based fantasy strategy game. It won't be out for another couple of years still. We've been developing a new 3D engine for it. The game relies heavily on user-created content. And, I stress, we started before Spore.

The modding tools, so to speak, are built into the game in such a way that's how we're putting content in the game. You can build your own worlds, your own races, your own characters and cities. You'll design everything you want. You can submit it into the game, and it goes up to us.

Once it's moderated, any user has the option to download third party content. The game itself is a little like Civilization, a little like Master of Magic, in that you start in a world that's been totally devastated by an event called the Cataclysm. As you start rebuilding the world, the map starts to come back alive.

But outside your realm, things are pretty desolate. It's not like Heroes of Might and Magic when there's just cities there - you actually get to build cities, build settlers, move them out, form new cities.

There's these things across the world called Shards. If you get them, they give you mana which you can use to cast increasingly powerful spells. I know one thing people liked about Master of Magic was the spell effects. But imagine what you could do on today's 3D hardware with spell effects.

Potentially old not-MoM screenshot:

The screenshot is called Elemental which was once the name of a supposed turn based fantasy strategy game.

Visit the magical land or Arnor where you take up the role of one of the 6 Mithrilar who are battling for control of this world. Research spells, summon creatures in this game that could be described as a bit like Master of Magic meets Magic the Gathering.

Sounds exciting. I like those design decisions. The stuff about large scale, terrain deformation, world affecting spells, and just general epic wizard battling is a great flavour when done right.

I am thinking of Sourcery (Terry Pratchett), where the wizards all build huge towers and throw magic at each other, with most of it rebounding off and laying waste to the surrounding terrain (it's a far better book than I make it sound).

Or throwing fireballs in Black & White, now that was a joy. Superheating stone for dropping on people's houses, and breaking up that huge pile of rocks in the final level to make an everlasting fire.

And Dominions, a game with a lot of problems which still somehow manages to hook me in. Swarming frost giants with flame-blessed flagellants, sacrificing blood slaves, mermen and kraken fighting undead hoardes at the bottom of the sea. And all the while the mages and priests put on a light show.

Most of all: fortresses in the sky, mana nodes, regenerating death trolls, phantom warriors, war bears, invisible flying warships.

From what's been rumoured, it appears that GalCivIII will not be incorporating our beloved Metaverse style system into that game... a shame really, but I wonder if there are designs to introduce such a system into the upcoming nMoM fantasy tbs game.

It would be great fun to have Empire stats for that one... just think of the possibilities!

SD should hold a naming contest. They list five likely names, one of which is the real one let the community guess and justify why they think a name is the official one and lets see who can select the right one.

SD should hold a naming contest. They list five likely names, one of which is the real one let the community guess and justify why they think a name is the official one and lets see who can select the right one.

Well...

It's Not-MoM, right?

So...

Is it DaD?

My apologies if someone has already made this joke, particularly as I know it's lame, but someone had to do it, and I didn't see anyone do it yet.